Silvana Estrada wants you to find the song in your soul
Silvana Estrada never danced the way she was expected to. As a little girl growing up in Veracruz, Mexico, the singer-songwriter tried to find her groove in ballet like all the other little girls, matching metronome ticks with sharp pointed toes and perfect right angles. But other people soon made it clear that the delicate piano was inspiring her to sashay her bigger body in all the wrong ways. "No necesitamos eso," her mother said, and with that they ditched the blush pink leotards and satin-sheathed shoes for dance classes she could move freely in, focusing on a more intensely percussive, liberating African-rooted dance.
She fell in love. From that point forward, everything became about chasing those soul-touching, all-consuming percussive rhythms that could prompt anyone within earshot to abandon their thoughts and move. "The sense of rhythm [that being in those kinds] of dance classes gave me is something I still have. This idea that music is good, it feels good in your body," Estrada tells NPR. "For me, it's like I really need
